August 20, 2007

Karl Rove Update

I can remember hearing New KDKA radio guy, Kevin Miller, say on the air Karl Rove had nothing to do with the Plame case.

This clip should (SHOULD - but remember, we're talking rightwing talk radio where fact ne'er intrude) put that story to rest.

Here's the clip.

The important part happens at the end, with Matt Cooper. Here's a transcript of that portion (h/t to Crooks and Liars):

David Gregory: Matt Cooper, let’s pick up on an aspect of the interview with, with Karl Rove having to do with the leak case, the CIA leak case, that you were part of as well. And something’s that’s very interesting, he, he went out of his way to say, “I would not have been a confirming source on this kind of information” and taking issue with, with Novak’s testimony in his column that he knew who Valerie Plame was. He said he would never confirm that information. That’s different from your experience with him.

Cooper: Yeah, I, I think he was dissembling, to put it charitably. Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11th, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD. I mean, to imply that he didn’t know about it or that this was all the leak…

Gregory: Or that he had heard it from somebody else…

Cooper: …by someone else, or he heard it as some rumor out in the hallway is, is nonsense.

Gregory: But he makes no apologies to Valerie Plame.

Cooper: Karl Rove never apologizes. That’s not what he does..

For those keeping score at home, Robert Novak's column where we all read this:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counterproliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

Was published on July 14th, three days after the phone call Cooper described. Three days after Rove leaked the information to Cooper.

For Kevin Miller (or for that fact for anyone) to say that Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak is just plain wrong.